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Maps of Life on the Tree

Collecting here a few handy maps of the Tree, I plan to rest the blog for a few days, as I go to a family celebration of my father being now 90.

Fore and aft my journey with the Chakras and the Tree, I savour my parental “human landscapes” (see earlier posts.) They are the left and right pillars in my Tree. They form the arch where through I enter “that untravel’d world whose margin fades, For ever and for ever as I move.” (Tennyson)

Next week I shall resume and complete the story of Siva and Parvati in the Sacred India Tarot Archive. Also, a Watershed tale, called “The Lens”.

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Tree of life, showing the BOTA tarot keys on the 22 paths

This shows where the Tarot Keys are placed on the Tree, between the 10 Sefiroth. Around the top of each Sefira is written its type of Intelligence. Each Tarot Key/Path has its own Intelligence also. For instance, Tarot Key 21 the World is called “the Administrative Intelligence”. Tarot Key 19 the Sun is called “the Collecting Intelligence”. Tarot Key 18 the Moon is called “the Corporeal Intelligence”. The Magician – Key 1 – is “the Intelligence of Transparency”. To learn more, contact B.O.T.A.org

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This illustration shows my old Hermetic Tarot arcana (drawn in 1990/91) on the Upper face paths of the Tree.

In Kabbalah, the right-pillar of Solomon’s Temple is active: the left-pillar is receptive, and the centre pillar is Consciousness – as in the electric circuit. It corresponds with the Indian Three Gunas or qualities, red, black and white – fiery-passionate-projecting, cool-intertia-veiling, and their equilibrium – Purity ascending. We see also the Indian view of GILGALEM, the whirlings, in the Rajas or creative tendency.

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This picture holds a story of life up the Tree:

Tarot Arcanum 18, looking up the Tree from Malkuth through Yesod: the path through the Moon

This Piscean Tarot Key is in fact assigned to the 30th path – Netzach Malkuth – and to the Hebrew letter Qoph, whose sign is Pisces and the feet. So that should be the letter over the Moon’s face – not Tzaddi. In my old system also, this path was assigned to Yesod-Tifareth, moon-sun, persona-Self; the path of honesty, of trial and probation. Each system responds according to experience.

Key 18 is called the Corporeal Intelligence: the repair and renewal of our cells when we sleep or rest … the embodying and testing process as we travel life’s path. Early life forms clamber out of the waters onto land; animal consciousness dimly perceives the human sunrise. Into our dark shadows, light yet gleams. The letter Qoph means the back of the head – medulla oblongata and the primordial reptile-brain . So this Key rules the autonomic nervous system.

Indeed Pisces is at home here: the feet and their reflexology. Through the sole of the foot, the organs of our body as converging meridians, touch earth, sand, water, warmth.

How like an embryo it is!

The two towers are the gate of our body or “known” threshold, beyond which the Spirit seeks its companions. Along the undulating path beyond the towers, the terrain gradually rises, so the lowest points are above the highest reached, erstwhile. Take heart from temporary depressions!

This is an example of how each Tarot Key may be portrayed as the Tree and Sefiroth proportionally – looking up into it.

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Here again is the map I drew last week:

Fontanel or fountain – the Chakras on the Tree, according to BOTA tarot

The Chakra “levels” are assigned to paths/Tarot keys between the Sefiroth. “Mars” is the Tower path (the “Exciting Intelligence”), bridging Hod to Netzach: the Crossing of the Red Sea. The Tetragrammaton triad appears, because the pin-pricks to outline it in that Aquariel post came through into the paper on which I drew this figure. Naturally they are incorporated!

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And here is the heart of the matter: the path linking Malkuth to Yesod, the Foundation in the root stem. Saturn – the planet assigned to The World tarot key – rotates in her Rings – toutes directions. The Understanding: the weathercock: the Earthbound.

The World compass at the heart of the matter

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She dances in the hidden yet outgoing Centre of the Cube of Space. In the B.O.T.A. teaching, the centre, the faces and corner edges of the Cube, and the three directional axes, are each assigned to a planet/zodiac sign/Tarot key. I drew the interior cube in slightly different perspective, to define it from the geometric projection. At its heart, where all points converge, you can just see the Saturn glyph, and a tiny TAV. In my view, Saturn is the musician of the universe, shaping the structure and form of Beauty. On the Tree of Life, Saturn is Binah, the Understanding … or literally, standingunder.

The Cube of Space, all points of the compass, showing the positions of the Tarot Keys

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This morning I am thinking about stand-waves – how the current flows through loops and bumps in a river down gradients and around hidden rocks. In the same way, gravity is curved to the bumps and vortices in spacetime. Observe the standwave of my physical body, constantly being replaced … the I-thought constantly replaced, substantiated, dying and being born: countless incarnations, each one seems to last a lifetime, each a moment of ultimate diversity.

Observe the power of that magnetic field which keeps the standing-wave in the river steady as the whole world loops and swirls through it.

Here are two sketches of little surfing demons; they show the principle however !

Rollercoaster standwave, 1987

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Surfing, 1987

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Who walks on the water, like Jesus?

Here is my portrait of Franz Liszt composing his Legende 2 of St Francis de Paule:

(The first two recordings are interesting, particularly the Perlemutter one in 1939. The more recent live one by Balasz Szokoly has a noble quality. I searched for Brendel playing it, but could only find his Legende No 1 – “St Francis of Assisi preaching to the birds”. I include it – do stop and listen to it ! – because it is exquisite.)

The Legende No.2 rumbles up and down the keyboard like a great storm at sea. The story is of a saint who needed to cross the water. He had no money, and the ferryman refused to take him. To the ferryman’s horror, the saint calmly followed the boat. Great waves arose, and the boat almost capsized. The saint walked on the sea with the heart’s glowing coin of coal in his hand, and quelled a mighty storm.

I have this feeling today, that I sit within a lens, in the core of the seed. I breathe a rainbow fountain. I visualise the paths of the Tree in their brilliant colours – my moon-boat. There is no call to go anywhere, because the within is deep, unspoken. I entrust myself to the shining mist. Over the waters, my un-named teacher approaches, holding aloft the cross of the Rose, and in his other palm, a sacred fire – the SUN. He is neither burned nor drowned.

Malkuth, with paths Qoph, Shin, Tav

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End of April is my each-year’s turning point. Since my teens, each 27 April passing, something is glimpsed, which changes the particles. In 1950, a French Himalayan expedition went to look for their mountain, Annapurna. All the existing maps were wrong, and the surrounding mountainous terrain very difficult. But on 27th April, they reached a high pass from which they saw the Goddess for the first time. They called it Le Passage du 27 Avril. They could see also, the way to Her through the deep dark valleys.

Annapurna Premiere 8,000 was my favourite book when I was a teenager. I learned to speak French through reading it in the original. This year, again I saw something. The Saturday 27 April Independent – glimpsed at the supermarket – carried a photo of the SUN, entitled “The Future just got Brighter”. The article is about the ITER project to replace our divisive nuclear fission technology with nuclear fusion – literally in Tarot terms, the “Collecting Intelligence” of unlimited solar power. It cannot be used for military purposes, nor can it poison the environment, being its source. The only small waste product is useful helium. The centre for this project is Cadarache in southern France; there is also one near Oxford in UK. Since 1985 when Russian scientists first published the process, an unprecedented concordance of 34 countries collaborates. The projected date is 2050.

I shall record my impressions of this article, in Aquariel in due course. It looks as if there is light under the horizon.

Annapurna as glimpsed from the Pass of 27 April 1950

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I heard someone say, the other day:
“As Attachment withers, Love grows. Then there is movement.”

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My adventure invites fellow travellers. I am a poet, an artist and a seer. I welcome conversation among the PHILO SOFIA, the lovers of wisdom.

This blog is a vehicle to promote also my published work – The Sacred India Tarot (with Rohit Arya, Yogi Impressions Books) and The Dreamer in the Dream – a collection of short stories (0 Books). Watch this space.